


Saccharine Like Black Licorice

by cecilkirk



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M, Underage Drinking, pretending to date leads to actual dating, suicidal ideations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-17 21:10:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5885302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilkirk/pseuds/cecilkirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality." --William Burroughs</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. valentine's day

“Isn’t this borderline criminal?”

Brendon drums his thumbs on the steering wheel. “Nah, man. We’re beating the system.” He holds up a fist in Ryan’s direction, perpendicular to the road beneath them. “Power to the people. Fight the man.”

A grin caught  the corner of Ryan’s mouth and he shook his head. Snow was just beginning to fall, light enough to get caught in the wind and be carried elsewhere. Taken to new places with little persuasion needed.

Tonight, Ryan empathized with the weather.

The restaurant was completely unfamiliar, both in location and name. Ryan couldn’t believe he’d lived here as long as he had and been so unaware, especially when Brendon said he came almost monthly.

“Okay, so this is really chill,” Brendon informs him as he unbuckles. “We just have to hold hands, stand close, whatever. That’s all.”

“You sound like you have experience,” Ryan comments, mirroring Brendon’s action.

“That’s because I do.”

Brendon opens and shuts the door behind him. Ryan blinks. A new set of emotions seeps into his brain, recoloring his world. A large contributor is crushed hope, and he’s not entirely sure why.

“Oh,” he says to the empty driver seat.

 

 

“Look at that.” Brendon slides the bill across the table. “Eight dollars for two meals. We done good.”

Ryan nods, finishing off his drink. “That we did.”

Brendon fishes around in his wallet for money. “See? It’s not criminal. They think we’re dating, they think it’s cute—” He sets down crumpled bills that wouldn’t have lay smoothly in his wallet—“and they let us eat cheaper. It’s a win-win situation.”

Ryan digs out a few dollars for a tip. Drops of guilt still stain his fingers despite Brendon’s consolation, so he gives a little more generously than usual. “If it’s to save money, I’ll feign romance with you anytime.”

A grin curls up Brendon’s lips, unsymmetrical and inherently devious. “Yeah?”

Ryan nods, slipping out of the booth. “Yeah.”

“Then I know where we should go.” Brendon pushes a hand to Ryan’s back as they leave the restaurant. He can’t decipher how much of it is façade, and how much is innate in his personality. He doesn’t mind.

“Oh, wait!” Brendon says, grabbing Ryan’s hand to stop him walking out the door. He’s staring at a wall covered in polaroids. A waitress with a camera stands beside it, grinning.

“We have to do this, Ry,” he pleads. The words drip out of his mouth, saturated in a false sweetness comical only to Ryan. The esotericism of his action seeds his grin in sincerity; knowing it wasn’t real was funny, but knowing it was just for him made heat spark in his cheeks.

The restaurant’s dim lighting was intended to provide the illusion of space. It made Ryan have to lean close to the wall to figure out what the pictures had captured. He doesn’t get a good glance; Brendon pulls him back and wraps an arm around his waist. Ryan’s eyes find the lens just as Brendon presses a kiss to his cheek.

The waitress’ grin is unfaltering as she hands them the picture to look over. Ryan feels his own die, but only for a moment, and only out of embarrassment.

She pins the picture up among the others, toward the center of the wall. Brendon’s hand hasn’t fallen from Ryan’s waist. The restaurant hasn’t gotten any less dim, but suddenly Ryan feels like the room is shrinking.

 

 

Brendon takes Ryan’s hand, interlocking their fingers.

“Yikes, man. Your fingers are freezing.”

Snow is still falling, but now it’s coagulated in ugly, dense clumps. “It’s winter. It happens.”

Brendon pulls Ryan’s hand up to his face, using both of his to cover Ryan’s. He presses kisses where Ryan’s fingers are left exposed, short, pecking kisses only meant to be funny. Ryan laughs, but his face burns.

It was only meant to be funny. He knows this.

Brendon presses a hand to Ryan’s back again, leading him into a coffee shop. Instantly it’s a juxtaposition to the restaurant: it’s brightly lit, has few people, and moreover, Ryan’s familiar with it. He’s been here with Spencer many, many times before. His eyes gravitate to their usual table.

“What do you want, babe?”

Ryan blinks, head swiveling. “What?”

“I asked what you wanted,” Brendon says through a laugh, lilting and airy.

“Oh. Um, whatever you’ll have.” Ryan looks over to the girl at the register, hoping this will score them some money off.

“Okay. Go get a table, then.” Brendon lets his hand linger for a moment on the small of Ryan’s back as he walks away.

Ryan chooses a table completely opposite the room from where he typically sat. He watches Brendon converse comfortably with the cashier. He’s grinning, happy, inviting. Ryan can see her eyes light up in Brendon’s presence, her posture relax as they speak more.

He chews his lip for a moment. He was radiant.

Brendon brings back two identical white cups. Ryan takes one, prying off the lid to let it cool.

“So how much did you get off?” Ryan asks softly, like it would preserve some kind of innocence—the kind he didn’t need anymore, but still wanted to possess if for no other reason than it being a joke now.

“Hmm?” Brendon asks, shoving bills haphazardly in his wallet. “Oh, none, actually. I guess they don’t do that anymore.”

“Oh,” Ryan says, sipping. “Well, thank you for paying. You didn’t need to.”

“No worries,” Brendon says, smiling, hand curling around his coffee. “I wanted to.”

To hide a smile, Ryan takes another sip.

Brendon sets his wallet on the table. It won’t sit flat. Green corners poke through the opening, like shark fins through waves.

“I’d like to think my taking a boy on a date is telepathically causing some backwards old people to double over in disgust. If all it needed was a handful of bucks to happen, it’s worth it.” Brendon raises his cup to Ryan. “Here’s to killing two birds with one stone.”

Ryan nudges his cup with Brendon’s, clicking his tongue in affirmation.

“Namely, my folks,” Brendon says after a sip. “They’d lose their shit if they saw me.”

“Yeah?” Ryan asks. He takes Brendon’s wallet, now needing to release nervous energy. He wanted to see where this was going, but he couldn’t sit idly. He, namely; Ryan was already involved in a similar story.

“Yeah. They’re pretty religious, so…” He waves his hand around. “Blah blah blah. God hates fags, or whatever. All that jazz.”

Ryan’s jaw clenches. He pulls out all of Brendon’s bills.

“You believe in a god?” Ryan asks, the words squeaking around the coil of nerves in his throat.

“Not if he hates me.”

Brendon is watching Ryan’s fingers work. Ryan can feel them boring into his knuckles as he tries to flatten the dollars.

Ryan won’t meet his eyes, but he comments nonetheless. They’ve created something ostensibly real between them; every lie had a grain of truth somewhere. In their case it more closely resembled a grain of potential, of possibility, reasonably hypothetical instead of irrefutably real, but it was something. Ryan felt he could gain purchase here.

“He’d hate me, too. If he were real.”

His fingers press the neat pile of bills against the table. After a moment, his eyes flicker up to Brendon’s. He’s not smiling, but his eyes feel warmer, wider, more inviting.

Ryan shuffles the bills back into Brendon’s wallet. He pockets it and slides out of the booth.

“But hey, did you see what was by the register?” Brendon asks as Ryan stands beside him. Their heads are close, Brendon’s feet passed the boundary of comfortable distance.

Ryan swallows. “No.”

He follows Brendon. There’s a jar decorated with dots of paint and full of scraps of paper.

“Write down your wish, Ry,” he says, pulling a pen cap off with his teeth. A comment more directed to his paper than Ryan in particular: “That’s what I remembered about this place.”

Ryan copies him, scribbling a few words on a small, rough scrap of paper. As they leave, some part of him is glad his wish will live in that jar. He had taken one last stab at juvenile hope, and it was going to reside somewhere pretty, along wishes like it. It felt holy, like a sepia-toned memory.

 

 

Brendon’s fingers are curling around the steering wheel now. His car has absolutely no heat. An unfamiliar desire flickers in Ryan’s thoughts, and he brings it to life without hesitation. He would bring some warmth in any way he could.

“What did you wish for?”

Brendon’s eyes squint briefly as he scans the road. “To find a home. Somewhere I can put down roots, feel safe and comfortable.” He puts one hand between his knees in the hopes of finding some elusive warmth. “What about you?”

Ryan looks ahead, out the windshield. The snow has stopped falling, and the sky is light and tinged with a grey-orange that only replaces the stars in winter. Eerie, but beautiful somehow.

“Peace,” Ryan says, clasping his own hands together.

He catches Brendon nodding out of the corner of his eye. The validation of his feelings brings a fleeting form of calm, and he lets it wash over him.

When they get to Ryan’s house, Ryan is about to thank Brendon for the evening—he even wants to try to make it light and humorous, complementary to Brendon’s personality—but Brendon climbs out of the car.

Ryan blinks. He hadn’t expected Brendon to walk him to the door.

A blush burns in his cheeks, battling off some of the cold that’s sunk into his pores.

“Thank you for all of this,” Brendon says. Ryan is caught offguard; he had anticipated he would say it, bring their night to an end how he had planned. It’s a little jarring, disorienting his thoughts.

“Yeah, no, thank you. It was great.” Ryan is taken aback by his words. He had meant them to be frivolous, funny, with no roots in his heart. They were sincere; his tongue was traitorous.

Brendon’s cheeks were speckled pink from the bitter cold. “So, what, no good night kiss?”

“No. My dad would murder me.”

Brendon blinks, and Ryan berates himself. It was meant to by dryly funny, but it had been too serious. Roots had grown far too deep too quickly.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m...” Brendon offers a nervous grin to break the tension, rubbing his hand on his neck to loosen his posture. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“No worries,” Ryan says, mimicking Brendon’s words just to see him grin. Ryan’s words finally escape inefficacy; a warm smile graces Brendon’s lips.

Ryan licks his lips. A thought enters his mind, his heart skipping a beat at it, but he doesn’t hesitate.

“You know what?” he says, taking a step toward Brendon. “Fuck it.”

He grabs the front of Brendon’s sweatshirt, pulling him in for a kiss. Brendon’s lips are chapped and rough, the air’s chill settling just on the surface. Ryan kisses him like he can take it away and replace it with warmth.

Ryan drops his hand and pitches his weight back on his heels. Brendon blinks, not quite meeting Ryan’s eyes. He grins smugly, but his lips feel electric. He had acted without real intention, but it hadn’t mattered. He couldn’t uproot anything now.

Brendon presses a kiss to his forehead. Against his skin, he mutters “I hope you find peace, Ryan Ross.”

Ryan watches him descend the short staircase and climb into his car. His chest felt tight from the taxidermy of cold and warmth: bitter air sunk to depths of his lungs, but a warmth inside his ribs made it hard to breathe at all. One final grin finds a way onto his face, the nerves in his lips still alive.

He thinks he might be on the right path to finding peace.


	2. fourth of july

Ryan never understood how country folk could have such large parties. He’d always assumed there was something innately unpopular about living so far away from people. Quickly he realized that where Spencer retreated every night and where he lived his life were not the same place. He watched Spencer sip beer from a plastic cup in the corner of his own house, pushed to the periphery by the people he invited, but he didn’t seem to mind. Dichotomy in location choice, perhaps, but he’d always be the same best friend.

“Who’s that guy you brought over?” he asks Ryan over the din of the crowd.

Ryan briefly scans the room for Brendon, as if he needed to validate Spencer’s question with his appearance. “A friend.”

Spencer tips the beer to his lips. “A friend,” he repeats, letting the words dribble to the bottom of the cup.

Clicking his tongue, Ryan says “Oh fuck you, you know what I mean.” He does know; they both know. And Spencer knows Ryan’s language is more innocuous than it seems.

Dry summer heat is dense and lateral in the house, and Ryan knows it won’t be much better outside. Quite possibly, it could be even worse. He raids the fridge for a coke and watches Spencer inch his way into a group conversation—not fraught with confidence, but not awkward. An evolution in its own realm.

Brendon enters the house through the back door, an easy, alcohol-greased grin painted on his face. He walks over to Ryan and opens the fridge. He puts his hand around Ryan’s waist as he walks past, letting his fingertips catch in Ryan’s shirt.

“Hey there, sunshine,” Ryan says, tone sketched through a laugh.

Brendon turns back to face Ryan. “Hello, beautiful,” he replies, stealing Ryan’s coke and leaving where he entered.

Ryan catches Spencer watching him, tipping up his cup and raising his eyebrows. He considers making some sort of ugly comment or flipping Spencer off. Through the glass door Ryan sees Brendon serenading no one, stopping only to figure out how he’d managed to spill a whole can of coke into his shoes.

The din of the crowd offers some shade of anonymity, security, something. Ryan joins Brendon on the porch.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Brendon stammers, dropping the can on the porch. Ryan grits his teeth at the trail of tinkling and the incongruity of Brendon’s syllables. He goes with Brendon.

Spencer lives on more than a few acres of nothing but rolling hills. The heat is beginning to blur the line into the sinking chill ubiquitous for this time of the year. Ryan can see being pulled under a distant hill, and the desperate streaks of light begin to fill the sky.

Brendon trips over his own feet, stuttering, but not falling.

A few fleeting thoughts behind him, Ryan sits on the grass. The hill is steep enough that his feet are more beneath him than away from him. Brendon joins him, and Ryan wonders how easily he’ll be able to clamor to his feet again. They face away from their friends and peers, watching the sun go down.

“Why didn’t you drink anything?” Brendon asks. His fingers are ripping up grass and placing the blades on the top of Ryan’s hand. Actions defy the drunken clumsiness of his feet.

“Not my thing,” he responds. He resists pulling his hand free and shaking it of the grass; it’s irritating his skin with the agony of an itch not being scratched.

Brendon lets his hand fall, fingertips colliding with a few of Ryan’s. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ryan says. “Alcohol doesn’t jive with my genes.”

Brendon pushes his fingers between where they’ll fit with Ryan’s. Partially above, partially from the side. Wherever they are, Brendon will make them work.

And they sit in silence as the cool night air envelops them. All the grass Brendon hasn’t uprooted flutters in a wispy breeze; Ryan can hear it. He is aware of Brendon’s fingers growing colder as the sun sinks. That is all he is aware of.

It’s not long for the fireworks to start. Ryan is so taken aback by the rapid passing of time he feels like he’s been suddenly awakened from a dream, or perhaps entering one. The wind picks up, and Brendon’s fingers leave his hand.

Ryan turns his head to see Brendon standing. He puts each of his feet on either side of Ryan’s hips, holding out a hand to hoist him to his feet.

“I’m so glad it’s summer,” Brendon says. He’s holding both of Ryan’s hands down in front of them.

“Yeah?” Ryan echoes.

Brendon grins at this. “Yeah. School was hell.” He looks at Ryan long enough for Ryan’s cheeks to burn, and then pitches his weight back on his heels, making their arms horizontal. He takes one step to the left; Ryan does the same; and then they’ve succumbed to spinning in a circle.

Their footing guides them down the hill to where it’s level, and their speed increases. Ryan grips Brendon’s hands, grinning, grinning, grinning. Brendon laughs, and it could be the last thing Ryan ever hears; he wouldn’t mind. It’s long and smooth, dampened by traces of alcohol but injected with happiness, the bright and pure kind of spur-of-the-moment joy making it buoyant, making it reach the fireworks just beginning to explode above them.

Brendon pulls his arms taut and in, whipping them around as fast as they can manage before they slow down to a trembling walk. Disoriented, Ryan takes a step back, but Brendon grabs his shoulders to stop him from falling.

“Easy there,” he say, nothing if not ironic; the words slipping through his teeth are still colored with beer. Red and green and blue light bleed down from among the stars haphazardly across Brendon’s features and Ryan does not think it could be more complementary.

Brendon’s hands stay on Ryan’s shoulders. Ryan puts his hands on Brendon’s elbows.

“I love you,” Brendon says, kissing Ryan’s forehead. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” He wraps his arms around Ryan’s shoulders, nose deep in the crook of Ryan’s neck and shoulder.

“I love you, too,” Ryan laughs. He has no idea if Brendon means it. He figures he has nothing to lose if it’s all just drunken antics.

Brendon pulls back, looking into Ryan’s eyes. “You’re like a firework. You know that?”

“How so?” Ryan asks, smiling. He’s willing to entertain Brendon’s alcohol-fueled conversation.

Brendon grabs Ryan’s face. His eyes have lost their glaze; they’re piercing now, and Ryan feels it like fingers on the base of his spine.

“You’re like a burst of beauty. Once you look away, you might never see it again. So you gotta savor it while you can.”

Ryan can’t bring himself to smile at this. Nervousness makes his face solidify. “Well—thank you, Brendon.”

There is a brief span of time between the explosions of two fireworks. It is in this space that Brendon presses his lips against Ryan’s.

Darkness blankets them for a moment. No one could see them, not even the stars; for all intents and purposes, it had never happened. The action could slip into nonidentity easily, almost effortlessly, so long as they let it die in the darkness.

A crack; purple rubs its way above Brendon’s cheekbones. His eyes hold the color loosely, and Ryan thinks it looks like it could fall out and drip away. Another explosion, and red replaces the purple. Every moment was different, ceasing to exist as quickly as it had come to life. Who was to say darkness was the only opportune time?

Ryan steps forward and kisses Brendon back. He is aware of the hollers of his friends and peers behind him, the Coke on Brendon’s lips that attract him, and the colors above uniting them. Moments come and go, over and over, and Ryan lets them. Time is on their side—it is in the eclectic summer wind and freckled stars and the pile of grass a few feet beside them. Brendon knots his fingers awkwardly with Ryan’s, the tops of both hands touching. This amalgamation of stitched-together moments could not have felt more smooth or linear. For them, it would be level. For them, it would be natural.


	3. halloween

“Are you sure about this?”

Brendon shrugs, and Ryan can feel the motion in their interlocked fingers. “I’m pretty sure it’s not illegal.”

Ryan watches the horizon of headstones creep closer. “It might be tonight.”

Looking at him, Brendon grins. “Oh, come on, now,” he teases. “You’re not scared, are you?”

“I fear what the local nutters might do if they see us here,” he admits.

“It’s not even close to midnight. We have nothing to worry about.” Brendon guides them on the pathway between the headstones, tugging Ryan forward. “The nutters are never early.”

Ryan makes a disapproving noise, but it’s no deterrent to Brendon.

They cross the cemetery and find a spot at the bottom of a hill free of cement and corpses, sitting across from each other. Brendon digs out candy from the pocket of his jeans and hands some to Ryan.

“So why did you pick your costume?” Brendon asks, peeling away wrapper.

Ryan shrugs, looking down at the unfamiliar clothes. He wasn’t even entirely sure who he was trying to emulate. “Always kind of wanted to be a musician. This is my chance, I suppose. Pretending for a night, sampling the possibility of my future.”

Brendon smiles at this, deep and genuine and bright. It’s adoration, and Ryan doesn’t know how to respond to such deep affection. He feels blood fill along his cheekbones, pressing heat into his skin. Plucking candy out of the wrapper, he pops it into his mouth and grimaces. “This is disgusting, Bren.”

Brendon clucks his tongue in disapproval. “No it’s not. Wait for the bitter to pass.”

“All I can taste is bitter.”

“It’s sweet underneath. Just wait,” he says, popping a piece into his mouth.

Ryan grimaces at Brendon’s enjoyment, but waves it away. “So why are you dressed as a vampire, then? Aspiration?” he asks through a smile.

Brendon looks down at his fingers, pulling off more thin plastic. “A reflection more than anything,” he says evenly. “Feel pretty dead inside.”

A thin, pointed wind swirls around and between them, a cold thread through warm autumnal air. “What?” Ryan asks softly.

Brendon shrugs, bringing his eyes up to Ryan’s. “School is hell, man. Especially when you’re not doing too well.”

Anxiety begins to line Ryan’s veins, dripping down into his fingers to leave them shaking. “You can get help, Bren, you can get a tutor, or I could try to help you, or–”

"There's no point," Brendon says. "I'm not going to get any smarter. It's not going to get any easier."

Ryan feels his breaths getting shallower, quicker. "Please don't say that."

Brendon tries to offer a smile of carelessness and apathy for the state he's in, but it immediately crumbles. He covers his face and drops his chin, hiding his tears from Ryan.

"Hey," Ryan says, dropping the wrapper and standing. "Hey, hey, hey. It's all right."

He holds his hand out to Brendon to pull him up to his feet. Ryan wraps his arms around his waist, pulling him in close.

"It'll be okay. It will," Ryan says. He is aware of the air swirling around their ankles and arms, and he pulls Brendon in closer, one hand rubbing knuckles along Brendon's spine. He can feel Brendon's arms tighten around his shoulders; he can hear Brendon sniffle. 

Ryan feels dampness begin to accumulate on his shoulder. He swallows bitter spit down, around the tears collecting in his throat.

 

 

 

The sensation of distance doesn't fall when they return to Spencer's house.

Even as they talk to others, talk to each other, laugh, party, whatever they're supposed to do to have fun, Ryan still feels like he hasn't left the cemetery. He can't look at Brendon without thinking of what he said. 

He feels like he's looking at the ghost of someone who's about to die. It makes him increasingly nervous and uncomfortable.

And with this detachment from reality comes the inability to be two feet solid in time; suddenly it's nearly midnight, and the house is somewhat bare of people.

Brendon's eyes meet with Ryan's. Ryan immediately feels nauseated and worried and a little bit of encroaching sadness, but he can see it in Brendon's eyes that he doesn't feel the same. With an upward gesture of his head, he beckons Ryan into a spare bedroom.

Ryan doesn't know what to say anymore. He's completely at a loss for words, unable to figure out what Brendon's intentions are based on their recent history. But he doesn't look away. He watches as Brendon shuts and locks the door behind them, and he watches as Brendon takes slow, tentative steps toward Ryan. Brendon doesn't look away from Ryan, either.

"It's almost midnight," Brendon says, almost against Ryan's lips. "Halloween is almost over. But the veil is still thin."

Ryan swallows. "I think that applies to the midnight prior to Halloween, not after."

Brendon doesn't remark on Ryan's comment; he doesn't dwell in the humor. Instead he keeps his eyes steady and intrusive in Ryan's, not moving his lips away. "It doesn't have to for us."

The shades are not drawn, and eerie darkness floods the room. Ryan feels like he's drowning, unable to move. He doesn't find himself minding.

Brendon presses his lips to Ryan's, not taking long to permit his body to do the same. He licks his way into Ryan's mouth and his thumbs find the hem of Ryan's shirt, just about to pull it up, and--

Ryan grabs Brendon's wrists, pulling his mouth away. He looks at Brendon is silence and stillness for only a moment before pulling off his shirt. Brendon takes the hint and takes off his own.

They collide again, finding their tongues inextricable and fingers pressing into warm, pliant skin. Ryan is aware of Brendon's breath across his upper lip, his tongue surrounding his, and his fingers--

Ryan's breath hitches, and Brendon pulls away in response. Brendon's hand is creeping past the front of Ryan's boxers.

They hold eye contact as Brendon moves his hand downward. Ryan grabs Brendon's other wrist as an awkward reflex.

In one brief moment, Brendon quickly pulls his hand from Ryan's pants and drops to his knees. Ryan feels his face begin to burn, his ribs tighten, his breaths get shallower, and--

He hears a heavy, fast breath suck down his own throat.  _Fuck_.

Ryan throws his head back against the wall, hitting harder than he intended. He can't look down; he'll fucking lose it if he looks. He feels Brendon guide his hands to his shoulders so Ryan has something to grip.  _Fuck, he really knows what he's doing._

As Ryan can feel himself losing control in Brendon's hand and mouth and  _tongue, fuck, fuck,_ Ryan closes his eyes and tries to focus on every feeling, every sensation he can, and he becomes aware of how the arches of his feet ache from his curling toes and how bony Brendon's shoulders are and how somehow, somehow there is still bitterness on his tongue until it all becomes overwhelming and too much and he loses control

_completely_

and Brendon pries Ryan's hands from his shoulders and he stands and wipes his lips with the back of his hand and steps close to Ryan.

"Hey, breathe," Brendon laughs, and Ryan suddenly hears himself wheezing. "Calm down there, champ."

Ryan blinks. Brendon pulls him back to reality as he presses his lips lazily to Ryan's, takes his hips in his hands. "It's the asthma. I'm good," he says through thin, short breaths.

Brendon chuckles and it's something low and throaty that makes Ryan's skin feel electric. He pulls his lips away from Ryan's so he can breathe and instead presses their foreheads together.

Somewhere, Ryan can hear Spencer's ancient clock chime with midnight. The night is still young and pliant around them, even as it encases them completely. It's their night; they have entertained the thought of the veil as they wanted. Brendon haphazardly knots his fingers with Ryan's. All they can hear is breathing. All they can feel is skin. All they can think of is the other.


	4. christmas day

 

Ryan is fully aware of the consequences of his actions.

Sneaking into someone's house was illegal, even if he had gotten permission. Brendon's parents could wake up and kick him out, claiming he was disrupting their Christmas, their son, their happiness. There was a very good potential that doing this could be bad. It could be meaningless. He was here to help Brendon, but it might not work. He might be completely useless, again. But it was always worth a try.

His actions would make up for his lack of passion, his blatant desire to just not be here.

Right?

A violent shiver racks Ryan’s body; the winter air had finally sunk down below skin level. And now he was warm, even if the heat was from inside the Urie house. Ryan shrugs and opens the door. He would deal with the consequences later.

He notices immediately that it’s 2:27 am, and that Brendon is wide awake. Neon blue digits stare back at him. Brendon looks at him meekly with wide, glazed-over eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. With a weak sickness threatening to overtake him, Ryan realizes that could very well be true.

“Hey,” Ryan whispers, shutting the door behind him.

Brendon blinks at him, offering a smile that causes tears to spill down his cheeks.

Ryan kicks off his shoes and climbs onto the bed, crawling over to kneel in front of Brendon. “Hey, hey, it’s fine,” he mutters. He puts a hand on Brendon’s shoulder. He never knows how far he can go to comfort him anymore.

In winter here, there was a kind of midnight light that filled the sky, pale orange and eerie. It seeped through Brendon’s windows and dripped over him, over the both of them, enveloping and uniting.

Ryan leans forward to kiss Brendon’s forehead. Immediately, Brendon wraps his arms around Ryan’s waist and begins to sob.

“Bren, sunshine,” Ryan says. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I promise.”

His voice is unyielding. He hates that he doesn’t sound upset.

Brendon pulls Ryan into his body like he can pluck the cold from Ryan’s skin just by his embrace, just by wanting to. Ryan doesn’t know if he wants that.

Eventually Brendon pulls back and looks up at Ryan through greasy bangs and empty eyes. Depression was really taking a toll on him, and evidently not even the time away from school was helping.

Brendon was free, and it didn’t matter. Ryan had never felt more useless.

“Hey,” Ryan whispers, gingerly touching Brendon’s cheek. “Have you been sleeping?”

Brendon shakes his head slowly, just an inch or two in either direction. “Not for three days.”

Ryan can feel his bones unravel. He wants to fall apart for Brendon. That was pretty close to love.

Right?

“Well…” Ryan pushes a clump of Brendon’s hair back, but it falls back into place. “Try to sleep, please. I worry,” he says.

“I know,” Brendon says. He won’t look up.

Ryan breathes in, breathes out. It comes out as a sigh. He knows Brendon thinks the same.

And for one moment, he considers pulling back the covers and climbing in. For one moment, he thinks about pulling Brendon’s back against his chest, linking their ankles, resting his hand on Brendon’s stomach. For one moment, he can see himself sleeping with Brendon until morning, ducking out early like they’d done something wrong. Like it was something to hide.

He thinks about it for only a moment. It probably wasn’t wrong.

Right?

Brendon still won’t look at him, and Ryan doesn’t want him to. The pale orange sky trapped in the bedroom feels like repulsion. To touch him would be making his elbows creak; to kiss him would be expelling more energy than it was worth.

What was once habitual now became obligatory.

Ryan swallows.

“Night, Brendon,” he mutters, climbing off the bed, slipping his shoes on.

Brendon says nothing.

Ryan didn’t want him to.

He leaves the room, the house, the road as if he were living in reverse--nothing had come of his journey. He had wasted sleep to reignite dead fuses and stitch together messy wounds.

He couldn’t do it. His fingers weren’t nimble enough.

When he can no longer bare the silence of his frozen car without wanting to rip his skin off, he punches on the radio. Crackly Christmas music leaks between the seats erratically. It was habitual, but it had never become ingenuine.

Ryan pinches his nose with icy fingers, praying away a headache and tears to a deity he doesn’t believe in. He’s grasping at straws now, doing whatever it takes. But it was weak; it was forced.

Why didn’t he want it anymore?

Surely there wasn’t anything wrong with letting love die, right?

Ryan blinks in surprise as snowflakes begin to fall, kissing the windshield. He doesn’t miss the body he could have next to him as much as the desire.

In a burst of frustration and exhaustion and incomprehension, he slams a flat palm on the steering wheel, forcing himself to feel, forcing the cold away. Tears drip down like tongues of fire, and he laughs bitterly at the connection. He didn’t need religion; he didn’t deserve holiness. His fingers are cold to the point of being swollen, his palm pins and needles and sore. He didn’t need warmth. He could use pain instead.

Right?


End file.
